


my sins i'll claim, i'm not immune to shame

by jaerie



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Break Up, Dark Harry, M/M, Masturbation, Sex Worker, Stripper Louis, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 10:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10717170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaerie/pseuds/jaerie
Summary: It's been two years since their break up and Harry still hasn't been able to completely move past the day that things ended between them.  When he gets a chance at a big fat "I told you so", his reaction isn't exactly what he expects.  He finds himself hard from some inappropriate thoughts and, well, sometimes even the best of us succumb to the darkest emotions.





	my sins i'll claim, i'm not immune to shame

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as part of an ongoing challenge. We each select random numbers and are given a specific emotion from the book 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names. To read the other fics written in this challenge, [click here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ShortFic_Challenge_For_Which_There_Is_No_Name/works), or you can find the masterpost on tumblr [here](http://lululawrence.tumblr.com/post/159679804243/1000-feelings-for-which-there-are-no-names-prompt).
> 
> Prompt #4: The shame at your own schadenfreude.
> 
> I went a little dark with this one... oh well! Enjoy!

 

* * *

 

 

 

_The smoke creates a haze as he hesitantly walks into the dimly lit club, swirling around him like flakes of snow would in the middle of a gusty winter storm.  He could already feel the stench permeating his clothes and clinging to his hair, a reminder that would stay with him later, flashbacks haunting him until he would be able to scrub his skin raw.  He is sure there are laws banning the smoking of cigarettes inside a public space but it also doesn’t seem like the type of establishment that would take laws too seriously._  

_A patron coming in behind him shoulders past, grunting rudely for him to keep moving but he isn’t sure what he is supposed to do.  His feet peel off the floor with a sickening rip like velcro with every step, evident that mopping is not a regular practice here.  He can only imagine what fluids had combined to create such a film.  Every instinct inside him told him to turn and flee to the comfort (and cleanliness) of his home, to curl up with a novel and his new kitten Patrick as he did every Friday night, a bottle of red slowly running dry with each refill of his favourite pink tinted wine glass._

_But he also couldn’t turn back now._

_He had to see if it was true._

 

**Two years earlier**

“Harry, would you just stop??” Louis slammed his textbook closed and glared.  His blue eyes, usually warm and fond, narrowed with anger as he directed his focus to Harry.

“What are you going to do out there, Lou?  What are _WE_ going to do out there?”  Harry was livid.  Rightly so, in his opinion but that description didn’t even come close to what he really felt.  Devastated, heartbroken, angry, crushed, just plain _hurt_.  One small sentence had taken away the love of his life and replaced him with an absolute stranger, someone he was having more trouble recognizing the more he spoke.  Everything he had been confident about in their relationship had been ripped off like a bandaid and the harsh sting left in its place seemed to everything in his present distorted.

“Find a job??  I didn’t spend 4 years of my life getting a degree to not use it, Harold.” Louis was throwing his words like pointed weapons, each one hitting Harry where it would hurt the most.  With one decision Louis had unleashed a sharp shooter,  the bullets hitting each of his carefully planned dreams for their future together right in the heart, each dying right before his eyes, one after another without any time to mourn.  His emotions stirred with the venom dripping from Louis voice, a tone he had used before but never, absolutely never directed at him.

“That’s not how it works!” his exclamation echoed off the walls of their small apartment at a volume that felt foreign coming out of his throat.  “You can’t just move to LA and become a movie star just because you got your degree in theater!!”

Harry had always been the responsible one in the relationship.  Even before they had been together romantically Harry was the one to keep Louis organized .  Nothing had ever held such gravity between them though, nothing had ever been so monumental.  Keeping his boyfriend of 4 years in line and his best friend for more than a decade before that usually meant stopping him from ordering $50 worth of pizza on a Saturday night after smoking a bowl when their rent was nearly due.  Or forcing him out of bed to make it to his early morning shifts at the coffee shop so they would have enough saved for their spring break trip each year; making sure he knew when all of Louis’ finals were to make sure he was prepared for them.

It had never meant being the voice of reason when his boyfriend suddenly announced he was moving across the country just 2 weeks before his graduation with no plan whatsoever.  No plan that Harry had ever heard anyway.  No plan that included him.  

“I’ve already been contacted by an agent!  He saw my headshots and said he had some films lined up for me already.  He thinks I will be very successful, very sought after.  He thinks I’m going to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio.”  His arms crossed over his chest as he puffed it out defensively.

“What headshots? When did you have headshots done??  Last I knew you had $40 in your bank account!”  Harry really was looking at a stranger.

“Okay fine.  He saw my pictures on Facebook.  But it’s the same thing really.  He says I have potential.  He’s even paying for my flight.”

“Someone found you on Facebook and they want you to be in ‘Films’?” he asked, fingers lifting in air quotes, “That sounds like porn, Lou.  That’s not how it works.”  

“Fuck you, Harry.  Fuck. You.  You can’t even be happy for me!  You can’t even get over yourself long enough to see that I’m finally getting my big break.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it!!  We’re in the middle of finals!  You were looking for a teaching job for this fall!  We just signed a lease for the summer on this apartment!!”  Harry’s voice was growing hoarse, doing a poor job of holding back the tears that were pushing at his eyes.  

“You really expect me to stay here to waste away in the bible belt?  I know you’re scared of the world outside your bubble but I have a chance to get out and I’m taking it.  You can stay here and live your little picket fence fantasy all you want but that’s your own choice.  Not mine.”

And that.  That hurt the worst.  

Harry’s whole path of self discovery was and would always be wrapped up in Louis and he knew that it was mutual.  In their small hometown in Kansas, it had always been them against the world since before he could even clearly remember.  It was being best friends in elementary school and growing closer when they confessed that they didn’t have any crushes on the girls in their class, something they wouldn’t admit in front of their classmates.  It was finding softcore porn late night on HBO for the first time, their pre-teen boners not so embarrassing when they both realized that it wasn’t the exposed breasts that either of them were fixated on.  It was discovering Queer as Folk and the conversations that began to crack their worlds open.  It was coming out to each other in the deserted grocery store parking lot in the middle of the night when there was nothing else to do in such a small town.  It was their first timid kiss, the first time they touched each other, the first time they had sex.  It was secretly holding hands under the table at Sunday school and hiding their relationship from their religious parents and community even when they both felt like they were already destined to be together forever.  

They had navigated the closet together until they moved to Wichita where they were able to bloom in college.  Now it suddenly felt like none of it had meant a thing to Louis.  

“Fuck you,” Harry meant to shout but his voice came out a shaky whisper that made his pain all too clear.  He thought he caught a flash of concern break Louis’ expression but it was gone so quickly, he couldn’t be sure.  

All of their late night conversations about pets and kids and jobs and dreams now seemed like they had been a mirage and he caught himself wondering if maybe it all really had been one sided the entire time.  He shook his head to clear those thoughts because he knew he had not just imagined it. 

“If that’s how this is going to be then,” Louis stood up and began shoving his books into his backpack, “I’m going to go stay at Liam’s.”

Harry watched as he yanked his clothes from the closet and shoved them into his suitcase and emptied his drawers into one of their empty laundry bags.  He watched as he struggled to drag everything towards the door in one trip, snatching random things from the floor and the table and the shelves as he went.  The door finally slammed behind him and he turned with a blank stare to where his boyfriend had just been standing.  His ex-boyfriend now maybe.  Probably not.

He didn’t let the tears fall until he realized this wasn’t just another one of Louis’ dramatic scenes.  He wasn’t coming back.  His Louis wasn’t coming back.  

Harry didn’t see him once over the next two weeks leading up to graduation but not for lack of trying.  When he showed up to watch him walk across the stage at the ceremony, he was only met with Liam who had to break the news that he had already left.  Louis was already gone.  

 

\---

 

It wasn’t that Harry didn’t love his life because absolutely he did.  Harry loved his neighborhood.  Next door Mrs. Downing, a widow in her 60’s, was often on her porch reading the paper when Harry left for work and always offered a pleasant smile and a wave.  He was a frequent guest at her house in the afternoon provided he brought with him one of his latest baking creations.  That wasn’t difficult since he often had a lot of free time on his hands.

The Thompson’s across the street had 2 year old twins that always wore bright smiles on their faces every time they saw him, especially knowing he was probably hiding cookies or treats for them in his pockets.  

Yes, he usually loved his neighborhood with the white picket fences and tree swings and flower beds. It was very picturesque, very small town midwest and it was one of the main selling points when he moved into his house nearly a year ago.  It made the reluctant decision to move back to his hometown after graduating just a little bit better.  Granted it wasn’t that far from the campus he had lived around for the last handful of years, only a 30 minute drive from Wichita on a good day.  A reluctant choice but it hadn’t exactly felt like a step back.  The town had grown over the 4 years he’d been a student.  They even had a Walmart and a McDonald’s now which certainly meant moving up in the world.  

He loved his job at his old elementary school where he helped to shape the minds of 124 young students.  Children’s problems always seemed so much easier to work out and as the school’s counselor, he felt himself making a difference every day.  At least he hoped he was.  It was everything he had always wanted to do.  

But Harry was lonely.  He had spent almost his entire life in Louis’ pocket and his absence, not just the end of their relationship, had left a deep hole that had never quite healed over or filled in.  Even Patrick, his very needy kitten, didn’t quite fill that void.

This was probably why his ears perked up when he overheard gossip from the next aisle over at the grocery store late one Friday afternoon.  

“You’ll never guess who is back in town,” he heard a familiar voice say over the loaves of bread in front of him.  He ducked his head to look through the shelf and would recognize that shaved head and plaid shirt as Liam anywhere.  “Last weekend Emily was in Wichita for a bachelorette party and at the end of the night they ended up at some male strip joint, you know that one off 35 by the truck stop?”

“The Cock Pit? You let her go there? That place is a shit hole.  It’s like the first scene of a murder story,” the other voice said incredulously.

“That’s beside the point!  You’ll never guess who she saw there!”  Liam paused for dramatic effect before dropping the bomb.  “Louis Tomlinson!  Full on nude, cock out Louis Tomlinson on stage!  I tried to find him on Facebook but he deleted his profile.”

Harry didn’t hear anything after that, brain short circuiting from hearing that name spoken aloud for the first time in months.  A loud crash brought him back to reality, the basket full of groceries he had been holding now scattered on the floor at his feet.  

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself and crouched to shoved everything back in, his carton of eggs slowly oozing yolk from the broken shells.

“Harry?  You okay?” he heard Liam’s voice like he was underwater but he didn’t try to understand it.  Abandoning the basket on the tile floor, he tripped over it and nearly ended up in a heap himself in his haste to get away.  He couldn’t be in public right now after hearing what he’d heard.  There was no way he could process the thought of Louis naked in front of a room full of people while he waited for the cashier to scan his breakfast food.  

He could hear Liam calling after him but he kept going, nothing quite registering until he was seated in the driver’s seat of his beat up Jeep.  

Louis Tomlinson was a stripper.  His ex boyfriend Louis Tomlinson was a stripper.  He couldn’t stop the smirk that spread across his face at the realization and it wasn’t at all the reaction he had expected to have.  Springing up from all the heartache he had worked through over losing him was the satisfaction that he had ended up right where he had predicted he would.  Maybe it wasn’t exactly porn but the similarities more than made up for it.  Louis had failed and the vindication bubbled up into a laugh that screamed “I told you so!” and “I was right!” over and over throughout the interior of the vehicle.  

He glanced down at the clock and before he even realized what he was planning, he was already calculating the time it would take to shower and drive to the truck stop on the other side of Wichita.  This was something he had to see for himself even if it was just to make himself feel better about what his own life had turned out to be without Louis to round it out.

After a quick shower, Harry stood in front of the mirror and stared at himself with his hair wrapped up in a towel turban.  He didn’t plan on being seen but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to make sure he looked his best.  While not vain, he also knew in the time since Louis had left he had really grown into himself.  Where he used to be gangly was now filled out with lean muscle and the curl of his hair had turned from quirky to flowing, flowing around his angular face that had grown out of the baby fat that had been hanging around for far too long.

He dabs on a bit of dark pink lip stain and moves into his bedroom to shimmy into his tightest jeans, pondering over several patterned shirts before settling on one of his sheers.  There wasn’t much of a nightlife to put it to use but he loved the way it appeared solid until the right light made his tattoos visible right through.  

Patrick circled his legs and cried for attention as he shook out his hair, the kitten not used to being ignored any time his owner was home.  

“I know, I know, I’ll get your food in a minute,” he told the furball, running some product through his drying curls before taking another look in the mirror.  He used a tissue to dab off the excess stain until his lips were a naturally sinful colour, adding a bit of gloss to complete the look.

Turning a few times to admire himself in the full length of his reflection, he smirked in satisfaction.  He was looking damn fine.  This was also a reminder of why these shirts didn’t get that much use.  He wasn’t sure the parents in town would appreciate their children’s school counselor with so many tattoos and skin on display.  He slid one more button loose at the thought and smirked.  He wouldn’t be running into any parents where he was going.  And if he did, his attire would be the last thing coming into question.    


The 45 minute drive seemed to flash by in a minute and as he pulled into the dirt and gravel parking lot, he almost changed his mind entirely.  Surely Emily had just seen someone who resembled Louis and putting himself so far out of his element wasn’t worth the risk.  The stirring curiosity in his stomach was strong though, and he knew he would never get it out of his head if he didn’t see for himself either way.  He wasn’t sure which outcome he was wishing for.  

On one hand, Louis had been everything to him and there would always be a part of himself that loved him without question.  That part was begging for him to find nothing when he walked through the doors.  But the devil on his shoulder wanted to see Louis’ rock bottom, urging him to roll around in self-satisfaction over his failure, bask in the feeling of being proven right.  

It was the latter that pushed him out of the vehicle, pocketing his keys, his shoes crunching over the gravel with every step towards the door.  

Harry had never been to a strip club, a fact that failed to occur to him until he was standing awkwardly in the middle of the bar with no idea what to do.  He glanced around before sinking into a vacant booth along the wall, resting his hands nervously on the grimy table top and turned his rings nervously on his fingers.  

The main stage was a triangle extending from the back wall with spotlighted poles near each of the three corners, the silver exposing the handprints of the performers in the reflection of the stage lights that seemed in need of repair, the one on the right flickering every now and then.  

There was loud music and chatter and seemingly no organization whatsoever in how the club was run other than the waiters who frequented each table to keep the drinks filled.  They were easy to spot in their tiny spandex shorts, their chests oiled up and glistening as they flirted with the patrons for tips.  Most of the small crowd looked to be in his dad’s age range, some a little more rough around the edges than others.  One of the table’s occupants could have fooled him for the school board if he didn’t know any better but maybe they really were the school board from another district.  No, he really hoped not.  That was too unsettling to think about school leaders hanging out in ANY type of strip joint.  But then again how could he judge when he was at one himself?  

A new song started and one of the waiters from the far side of the room made his way up the few stairs to stage, his hips swaying flirtatiously to the music on his way, already putting on a show.  It was a show he knew all too well and he would recognize that ass anywhere.  For a moment he briefly teleported back to their old run down apartment, both of them tipsy on wine and giggling as Louis’ impression of Shakira’s hip wiggle morphed into a seductive sway that made his mouth water.  

Reality was quickly snapped back into focus as an old man reached out to slap Louis’ ass, making it jiggle.  Harry could see the flash of irritation and humiliation cross over Louis’ face before he plastered on a sickeningly fake flirtatious grin, wagging a finger at the man and sticking his hip out for a tip.  The man tucked a single dollar bill into stretch of his spandex shorts that barely even covered the curve of his cheeks.  Some of the men were cat calling him, not seeing or not wanting to see that he wasn’t actually enjoying it.  

Harry leaned back into the shadow of his booth, his eyes glued to his nearly naked ex-boyfriend.  The shorts left nothing to the imagination but unlike the other men in the room, he had an intimate knowledge of every centimeter of skin that was tucked away.  He may not know how his now enhanced curves felt against his hands but his skin was still exactly the same.  He imaged that if he slid his fingertips over the same spots that it would be just as smooth, that little goosebumps would rise and cause him to shudder.  It felt like privileged information amongst men who got to view the goods but never touch.  

Louis wasn’t getting that from him anymore, though.  Louis had been the one to walk away from what he knew his fingers could do.  

Reaching an arm up, Louis effortlessly gripped the pole, muscles tightening as he hoisted himself up above the ground with just one hand.  It was when he began lifting his body into complex poses that that Harry realized that this was not Louis’ first rodeo; he had been doing this for a long time to have that kind of skill.  And somehow that made it better.  He watched Louis maneuver himself around the pole, much more athletic than he had ever been as a junk food eating college student, and imagined what had brought him to this point, naked and dancing in front of the man he’d left behind.  

Harry was still convinced it had been a scam.  Louis would have arrived in LA to nothing that he was promised with only a suitcase and the clothes on his back.  He imagined him desperately looking for work, too stubborn and ashamed to come home and admit he had been wrong.  Maybe he had ended up doing some work in porn.  Just because Harry had never stumbled across one of his videos didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.  Maybe a friend had suggested dancing for some extra cash and he had never been able to get away from it.  Maybe he didn’t feel like he was worth more than this anymore.  

With each dollar bill that disappeared into Louis’ waistband he imagined the defeat that would have drove him to this.  He imagined Louis thinking about him during his first dance, wishing he would have listened and taken his advice while he stripped for strangers.  

Louis was teasing a glimpse of his ass when Harry realized he was hard, a shift of his hips gave him enough friction to draw his attention to it.  His moan was drowned out by the music and he subtly slipped his hand beneath the table to squeeze himself just enough through his jeans.  He felt dirty for getting hard in this situation but gloating was a new feeling that was intoxicating and his dick was feeding off of every ounce of it.  

Dollar bills drifted down to the stage when Louis slid his tight shorts down his thighs, spreading himself open in the face of the old men while he bent to remove them from his ankles.  He turned to face the crowd with his dick in his hand, leaning back against the pole with his eyes half closed in counterfeit bliss.  It was a half-hearted erection, no where near as hard as Harry could make him, but the old men were palming themselves through their jeans and throwing their money at him anyway.  Any part of Louis was probably more than any of them had ever been entitled to.

In the back of his mind it made him sick to think of Louis being treated this way but in the moment there were other emotions that were stronger, others that licked at Harry like fire and took over in an uncontrollable blaze.  Each public stroke of his cock felt like Harry was being refunded moments of his life that he had wasted crying over him, spent trying to heal the pain of being cut into pieces and left behind.  They were restitutions for the last two years that he could never get back.  

There had always been a nagging feeling deep within him that he had been wrong.  Maybe Louis had been out in LA being successful and Harry had been a fool to not support him.  That Harry could have been living in LA with the rich and successful love of his life.  He had tried not to let the thoughts eat him away every time they surfaced but to be able to discard them completely immediately made his chest feel less constricted.

He leaned forward and gripped himself harder through the thin denim at the same moment that Louis saw him and his dick gave a twitch.  It was so quick that he would have missed it but the shame that immediately flushed his face was proof enough.  His hair was longer now and he used it to hide, long bangs falling down to cast a shadow over his face.  The rest of the men found it seductive and leaned forward for a better look.  He had to admit that Louis put on a good show even if he was the only one who could tell that none of it was real.  His body writhed and he let out perfectly timed moans that even went straight to his own groin.  

Louis brushed his hair back to look along the line of old men.  Harry was confused by the action until one of them slammed a $100 bill down onto the stage and Louis dropped to his knees in front of him.  The man’s wedding ring glinted in the light when he gripped the stage, leaning in as close as he could from his chair.  Harry couldn’t sit still in his seat, pushing into his own hand as Louis was humiliated for his own pleasure.  The dam broken for him when Louis shifted his gaze, his bottom lip held tightly between his teeth as he held eye contact with Harry as he came all over the paying customer’s face.

Harry moaned and closed his eyes as he came in his pants, unable to confront his own thoughts as his orgasm tore through him.  When he opened them again Louis was gathering up his loose tips from the stage and it was all suddenly all too much for Harry.  Reality hit him like a bucket of cold water and everything he had chosen to ignore about the situation was now highlighted in front of him.  

Louis, the love of his life, was selling himself and his dignity for money in a seedy strip club in the middle of the corn belt.  He felt like he was drowning in the stale cigarette smoke, the darkly painted walls moving closer together like an adult rated version of Alice in Wonderland.  He stumbled out of the booth and into the clean air of night, pushing some people out of the way in the process.  He managed to make it to the ditch before he threw up, his body unable to handle the waves of shame and guilt that clenched around him like a vice and causing him to choke on his own sobs.  

The evidence of what he had done was wet and uncomfortable against the crease of his thigh and he all but threw himself into the back seat of his Jeep.  He wriggled out of his jeans and briefs in one go like they were on fire and wiped at his skin until he had done all he could.  His gym bag was still in the car from the day before and was glad to have a moment of good fortune as he slid on his shorts.  

The drive home took twice as long as it had taken to get there.  He took the backroads so he was forced to keep all of his focus on the two lane curves and not on what he had just let happen.  He was exhausted when he finally pulled into his driveway.  On autopilot he filled Patrick’s water dish, locked the door and fell face first onto his mattress before anything could come back to the surface.

 

\---

 

The sun didn’t seem so joyful when he opened his eyes in the morning.  Even Patrick was abnormally on the other side of the bed like he knew exactly what Harry had done and was judging him for it.  

He took a nearly scalding shower that turned his skin pink and tingling before tentatively nibbling at a piece of dry toast while he sat in his bathrobe.  

Generally, Harry thought of himself as a good person.  He was helpful and compassionate and never hesitated to put others before himself.  The last time he could remember anything close was the time he had broken his sister’s new phone over the jealousy that he wasn’t allowed to have one yet.  He had been 10 and even then had knew it was wrong before the phone had even hit the wall.  It wasn’t who he was or who he had ever been but now that he was an adult, he didn’t have an excuse. 

He stepped out onto his porch to grab the paper and Mrs. Downing called out a good morning and waved.  On a normal day Harry would have already been seated next to her with a cup of coffee and his latest baking experiment, reading the paper and chatting about the world news.  But on a normal day, Harry had nothing to hide.  The paranoia that she could see right through him, could know the thoughts he had while he came in his pants, had him giving her a small wave before slinking back into his house in shame.  

He locked himself away from the world until the sun had gone down and he couldn’t take it anymore.  He didn’t bother changing out of his sweatpants and an old stretched out t-shirt before climbing into his car and heading back towards The Cock Pit.  Louis might not even give him the time of day but he had to talk to him, if only for his own conscience and karma.  

The parking lot held more cars the second time he pulled in and he was glad he wouldn’t have to face the crowd inside.  He waited anxiously in his car until he saw Louis slip out the back door, leaning back against the wall as he lit up a cigarette.  The smoke whipped around in his face in the breeze and he was glad to see Louis had at least slipped into some joggers and a hoodie before coming outside.  He was familiar this way, more approachable.  Soft Louis was _his_ Louis and it settled the nerves that had been building up.  

Just as he was about to get out of the car a motion caught his eye through the mirror.  A man had come to stand in front of Louis, arms boxing him in against the wall.  Harry might have thought it was a boyfriend if it wasn’t for the obvious body language that said the advance was unwanted.  He reached the pair just as Louis’ hands pushed at his chest, cigarette already dropped to the ground.  

“Hey get off him,” Harry gripped the man’s collar, attempting to pull him back.  

“Woah, hey, I don’t want any trouble,” the man immediately backed down now that there was a witness, his hands up in surrender as he fled to his car.  

“I don’t need your help, Harry,” Louis’ voice was sharp and filled with false bravado, his arms tightly crossed over his chest sending an entirely different message.  A silence passed between them that neither of them could break, an uncertain tension that was filled with the achingly familiar yet strung tight by the unknown.  

In the end it was Louis who broke, stamping out the smoldering cigarette with the toe of his flipflop.

“Go ahead.  Say ‘I told you so’.  I know you want to,” he said towards the ground, unable to face him.

“I did want to,” he admitted honestly, “But I don’t want to anymore.  I don’t want to be right about this.”  

“I don’t need your pity either.”

His chest clenched at the vulnerability that Louis’ voice betrayed.

“I don’t pity you,” he shook his head, his loose hair blowing into his face.  He pushed it back with his fingers and held it there so he could see the sincerity he hoped was there in his eyes.

Another silence stretched between them until Louis’ hiccup and following sob broke through.  

“All I wanted to do was come home,” he confessed softly, his hiccups continuing with his effort to hold back his sobs.  

His arms wrapped around him on instinct, cradling him to his chest while his fingers began to card through his hair.  

He knew his little house with the picket fence and flower beds wasn’t and had never been their home but in the moment that didn’t seem to matter.  He didn’t know where they were going or where he even wanted them to go.  He knew that there were still wounds that hadn’t fully healed, that on night could never fix.  He knew that there had been two years between them that they would have to sort out, conversations that would need to be had. He knew that nothing was going to be easy.

But Louis was the love of his life and even if they decided to part ways tomorrow, he would never wish anything but the best for him ever again.  

“Then let’s go home.”

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [If you enjoyed, here's the tumblr post :) Come say hi!](http://jaerie.tumblr.com/post/159976354417/title-my-sins-ill-claim-im-not-immune-to-shame)


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